This is my story. What more do you need, Migrationsverket?

In Bangladesh, we were two friends, Mohammad Ibrahim and me. We got to know each other in 1987 and the two of us got involved in a relationship in 1990.

My friend Mohammad Ibrahim later got married because of family pressure, but I myself was never married. Still after the marriage our relationship was active and he remained committed to me.

Some time after the marriage his wife heard about our relationship from friends and neighbours, but still nobody could show any evidence about our relation. Mohammad Ibrahim and his wife quarreled a lot with each other because of her suspicion of our relation.

On the 19th of March 2011 we got caught together in Mohammad Ibrahims bedroom as his wife came back early from a visit to her father’s house. When his wife saw us, I quickly left the place. It was pure luck that I was able to escape from my friend’s bedroom that day. Now his wife had seen our sexual relation with her own eyes and she was furious. She went out and told about our activities to her family and neighbours. Our relationship was then quickly spread in all of our town and already the next day, on the 20th of March, a group of islamic extremists and fundamentalists came to my house. They were searching for me and they said they wanted to kill me but they could not find me because I was hiding inside the water tank behind our house. When they did not find me in my house, they threatened my family (my father, mother and my younger brother) and they said that they would come again. After they had left my house I came out from the tank and quickly escaped to another place. Several times islamic extremist and fundamentalist groups came to my house wanting to kill me, but they did not manage to find me because I managed to hid myself every time.

One day I found out that my friend Mohammad Ibrahim had killed his wife. He had put her body on fire and she had died a few days later in Chittagong medical hospital. I became very scared when I found out about this. Shortly after this happened a very powerful islamic fundamentalist and extremist group published a ”Fatwa” against us for the killing. I became very scared to hear this and I am still extremely scared.

Bangladesh is the second largest muslim country in the world. There are a lot of Madrasha, islamic schools in Bangladesh. The schools are generally not registered by the authorities. The schools are called “Kowmee Madrasha” and in these schools you find a lot of students and teachers getting more involved in islamic extremist activities.

I left my town on the 22nd of May 2011and went to Dhaka city, where I stayed in my friend Mohammadpur’s house for a long time, trying to hide. I was very scared and most of the time I could not sleep because I was getting panic attacks that kept me awake. One day I went out from my house to buy some things, but I was unlucky and two people caught me because they could identify who I was. I was very lucky though, because I was able to escape from them by force and got help from my friend Nasir-ul-Alam. After that I was living at another place called Uttara in Dhaka city. At the end I managed to escape my country and after a long journey I arrived in Stockholm, Sweden on the 12th of March 2012.

This is my story.

This story was not enough to get asylum in Sweden. I got a negative decision from Migrationsverket.

I am scared. My life is depending on a positive decision. If they send me back, due to the Fatwa, I will probably be hanged. Not only the extremist groups makes it dangerous. Other islamic groupings and Kowmee Madrasha schools , which exists in the whole country, publish regularly different types of Fatwas and information about people that should be punished. I am one of those. They have disclosed my homosexuality.

In Sweden, as I mentioned earlier, I got a negative decision from Migrationsverket. This is hard to understand for me. What is it that Migrationsverket wants me to prove?

While waiting for a solution I am trying my best to survive in Sweden. Migrationsverket has given me a LMA card, which gives me an opportunity to work, and secure my income for a specific period of time. To, work and to earn money would help me, it would also strengthen my position towards the authorities. But, to find a job in Sweden is nearly impossible. Without a social security number, a person number, I will never be able to get a bank account, without a bank account I will never recieve a salary (since employers do not pay salaries in cash). To get a job is in general nearly impossible. Last but not least, the Swedish language is a barrier, and we don´t get any language courses, which makes it even more difficult to get into the labour market.

I am scared. With 61 kronor per day in support from the Swedish authorities, no Swedish language skills, no person number, no bank account, and no job, I am fighting to survive. Above all this my life is pending on my case. I may be sent back to Bangladesh where groups are waiting for me to hang me. I ask again, what more do you need, Migrationsverket?